Just a memory
by here4rizzles
Summary: A really sad story while I try to get my groove back for my other stories. Reviews are welcome!
1. Chapter 1

I still remember how her eyes used to sparkle. I remember how her hair used to dance and shine in the sunlight. I remember her energy, her love, her care and her intelligence. I remember the smile that used to curl her lips right before that dimple appeared on her right cheek. Sometimes I can still hear her laughing. But it's only in my mind. It's nothing more than a memory. The clear sound of her laugh. I will never forget the sound of it.

That woman is gone. The Maura Isles I fell in love with, isn't here anymore. The woman I married is no longer the same. I still love her and I will never stop loving her, but she's gone. She left when the worst thing happened to us that could ever happen to anyone. The one thing that will shred your heart to pieces, leaving you as nothing more than an empty shell. The thing that will change you forever and never allows you to go back to who you were.

Losing your child.


	2. Chapter 2

She was the most beautiful girl in the entire world. She had my black curls and dark eyes. She had my energy, my dominance and stubbornness. But she had Maura's love for books and knowledge. She had her care and gentleness. Her small hands moved in the same controlled, skilled way Maura's did. We often told each other she would grow up to be a doctor. She had the potential and the ambition for it. She wanted to save lives. That was her dream. She never got a chance to make it reality.

She was our only child. Conceived with an anonymous sperm-donor with my DNA, carried by Maura. She was our first and only baby. I remember the first time I held her in my arms, a purple, screaming little creature. I fell in love. I'm still in love with her. But now she's just a memory. I'm in love with a memory.

That beautiful, smart, energetic girl is gone. Just like that. She was yanked away from our lives, leaving a gaping, bleeding wound that is never going to heal. We never got to see her grow up. We never got to experience the trouble of a daughter going through puberty. We never got to watch her grow into the beautiful woman I know she would have gotten to be. She will always be eleven years old.

Julia.


	3. Chapter 3

Childhood Leukemia. Maura was the first to notice it. A bloody nose during one of her baseball-games. Fainting during a playdate with her best friend Hannah. Bruises all over her body, with no explanation to how she got them. It all happened so fast.

I walk through our living room and stop at a little table in the corner. I look at the picture on it and trace a long string of beads with my fingers. I look at her dark curls that she tried to contain in to a ponytail the day of the picture. I remember how much she cried when we had to shave them. I look at her dark eyes, just as dark as mine, and I remember how they lost their sparkle and turned yellow around the edges.

I swallow and look at the string of beads my hand is holding. One bead for every treatment. Bone marrow biopsies. Chemotherapies. Blood tests. MRI scans. Eventually, the string was long enough to drape around her skinny neck four times.

I turn around and look at my wife on the couch. She's lying down, staring at the TV without paying attention. She's so beautiful. Her eyes lost her sparkle. Her curves left along with the weight she lost. But she's so beautiful. She's not the same but I will never stop loving her.

I sit next to my wife and take her feet in my lap, gently massaging her feet. We don't speak. We don't really talk anymore. There's nothing left to say. There's only pain. The empty space Julia left is drifting us apart. It's the most hurtful empty space I've ever experienced. My heart bleeds every time I walk past her bedroom, drive by her school or the baseball field where she used to play. Sometimes I think I can still see her dark ponytail bouncing up and down as she makes her way across the field. Sometimes I think I can still hear her humming in her bedroom while she reads her book. Sometimes I think I can still feel her skinny body in my arms.

But it's all a lie. She's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

It's a cold Sunday evening. Winter has arrived in Boston. My fingers are intertwined with Maura's as we make our way down the path in the forest. Maura suggested the walk and I'm glad she did. It's been a while since we've been out of the house together for something else besides work.

We walk in silence, our hands holding each other tightly. It feels like if I let her go, I will lose her. I watch the last of the sunlight shining through the trees as the sun is slowly setting. It will be dark soon, leaving the forest empty and cold. Just like the two people walking here. Julia was our sunlight. Now we're cold and empty.

Suddenly a familiar woman crosses our path. She smiles at us, but her smile contains the same sadness everyone has lately. Everyone that knows what we're going through smiles the same way. A crooked, half smile with a tilted head to show empathy.

"Hi, Brenda," Maura greets her in her usual, gently voice.

"Hi, nice to see you." She bobs her head and seems uncomfortable. "How are you?"

I don't know how to answer her question. How am I? I'm not anything anymore. I'm empty. "We're pulling though." I smile politely. I don't want to talk to her, even though I'm eternally grateful for the things she did.

She was Julia's nurse. She was by her side, treating her nausea and other horrible symptoms. She's the one that sat by her side when Julia had to spend a few hours alone while her mothers couldn't get out of work. She's the one that calmed her down when Julia panicked right before yet another MRI scan. She had been Julia's rock. A piece of her broke off when Julia passed away.

"I uhm…" Brenda shakes her head and I can see the pain in her eyes. Julia was not just a patient to her. She was special, just like she was for everybody else. Julia was a girl that left nobody untouched. She was energetic, cheerful and smart. She was the one to get the party going, to cheer people up and to make people laugh. She left no one untouched.

"I just want to say I'm sorry for all you're going through," she says softly after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "I can't even imagine how hard it must be."

We both smile at her, because we have to. I thank her and we say our polite goodbyes. We continue our way to no particular destination. We stop when we reach an open field. I sit down on a large rock and pull Maura in between my legs.

The sky is turning a bright shade of pink, small clouds still lingering after the rain from this morning. The air is crisp and fresh and I breathe it in deeply, catching a hint of Maura's faded perfume and shampoo. She still smells the same.

I close my eyes and pretend that things are still the same for a moment. For a while, I imagine that nothing has changed and Julia is just a few yards away looking for pinecones or something. I image her voice calling out to us when she finds something special. I imagine her hurrying towards us to show it and Maura's proud smile when she looks at it. I imagine how Maura would explain to Julia exactly what it is and how it got there. Even the tiniest rock could lead to scientific facts. I imagine Julia nestling in our arms because she's tired from running through the forest. With my eyes closed, I can almost see Maura kissing her black curls and caressing her cheek like she always did. I can almost see that look of pure, unconditional love in her hazel eyes that she reserved for her daughter.

But then I open my eyes. And all I see is the sky that is now quickly turning dark. I don't hear Julia's voice. I don't see her running towards us. Maura's arms are empty. Just like our hearts.


	5. Chapter 5

"Two months." Maura stands in front of Julia's picture and traces it with her fingers.

I nod and stand behind her, carefully placing my hand on her upper back. "Yeah." I don't know what else to say. Unconsciously, we've been counting the days. It's been eight weeks since we lost her. Eight weeks since that awful, heartbreaking moment of letting her go.

I can't think about it. I shake my head to try and get rid of the images in my head. I push away the image of the big, white hospital bed and the sick, hollow shell that used to be our daughter. I push away the feeling of having both her and Maura in my arms as we try not to cry while we tell her it is all going to be okay. I can't feel it. If I do, I'll break.

"Maura," I whisper. My voice sounds hoarse and strange.

She hums and takes my hand in hers.

"I can't feel anything." I swallow hard and feel the empty hollowness in my chest. "I feel so empty."

Maura turns away from Julia's picture, the sight of it is too much. She closes her eyes and nods. "Me too."

"A few weeks ago, I was just sad and I just felt pain… But now…" I sigh deeply and close my eyes, not wanting to see the pain on my wife's face.

"You can't feel the pain anymore because if you allow yourself to do so, you're afraid it'll be too much pain and you'll die from it."

I open my eyes and see hazel eyes looking back at me. I nod. We haven't cried in weeks. The first few days, Maura did nothing else. She spent her days laying on the couch, sniffling away silent tears. She spent her nights sitting up in bed, hugging her knees to her chest while she swallowed her sobs. I pushed it away at first, but that only made it worse when it finally came out. We cried for hours, days, maybe even weeks. I don't remember. Day and night wasn't clear back then. It was all just a blur of tears, people visiting and bringing flowers, a blur of pain and bleeding hearts.

"It's too much," I whisper, feeling a large lump settling painfully in my throat.

Maura nods. Her arms wrap around my waist and she hides her face into the crook of my neck. I gratefully put my own arms around her upper body, squeezing her as close as I possibly can. Everything is broken. Everything is empty and hollow. Nothing feels right. Except for this. This is the last thing that feels right. This is the only thing in my life that feels right. This woman in my arms. This is the only thing that's right.


	6. Chapter 6

"Do you remember the moustache?" Maura asks me while her hands hug a cup of damping hot tea. We are sitting on the porch at the back of our house, wrapped up in warm jackets as we watch the snow falling in our backyard.

We moved here when Julia was two years old. I look at the swings and remember how much she used to love them. How she squealed when I pushed her too high, how Maura yelled at her when she jumped off them from way too high. How Maura said 'I told you so' when she sprained her ankle when she was eight.

"Yeah." Of course I remember the moustache. Julia's doctor had a big, dark moustache. She called him Dr. Moustache. During her first weeks of treatment, things looked good. She was going to get better. Dr. Moustache promised it. But Julia insisted on making it official. She sat up on her knees in her hospital bed and moved her face close towards his, a mischievous sparkle showing in her dark eyes as her lips curled up into a smirk. "Prove it. Swear on your moustache!"

He did. He swore on his moustache.

I remember how, weeks later, he came into Julia's hospital room. His moustache was gone.

She was too weak for further treatment. The cancer was spreading through her body, eating her alive. Her body was too weak. The fight was too much. His moustache was gone.

"He was a good doctor," she whispers after she takes a sip of her tea.

I nod. He couldn't save our girl, but he was a good doctor. He did everything he could, I know he did. He loved his moustache.

Suddenly we see a small figure walking up to the house, dressing in a warm winter coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck, tucked up under her nose. "It's Hannah."

Maura looks up and smiles. Hannah was Julia's best friend. They had been ever since pre-school. Hannah wasn't the same since they lost Julia. She still visited them regularly, just to drink tea and sit in silence.

"Hey, honey," Maura greeted the girl when she came closer.

Jane smiled at her daughter's friend. Her hair was a dark shade of red and her eyes were bright green, her skin covered in freckles. "Have a seat," I pat the spot next to me to invite her to sit down. "Tea?" 

"Thank you."

Hannah is the only eleven-year old I know that likes tea. I walk inside to pour her a cup of tea and hand it to her, quickly stroking her hair before I sit down. This is Hannah's way of holding on to Julia. She always felt more at home with us than she did at home. Her parents are busy professionals; her father owns his own business and her mother is a professor at BCU. They have all the money they could wish for, but barely any attention for their only daughter.

"We're gonna have a baseball tournament in school," Hannah says after a few long minutes of silence. "And I'm going to play."

"You are?" Maura looks at Hannah, her eyes wide in surprise. "I thought you didn't like baseball?"

Hannah shrugs. "I don't. But…"

I can tell she's going to bring up Julia. I squeeze her arm to tell her it's okay.

"Jules always said I should play. And wh-… When she-… When she got sick, she told me I should take her place."

I smile. The first genuine smile I've smiled in weeks. "That's sweet of you."

Hannah nods and stares into her cup with blueberry flavored tea. "You uhm… You can come watch if you want. It's next Saturday."

My first instinct is to say no. I don't want to go. I don't want to be confronted with Julia's classmates and the sport she loved so much. "We'll think about it, okay?"

Hannah nods again. "Okay."

We stay silent and watch as the snow slowly stops falling, leaving the earth covered in a white blanket. I love who snow always silences everything. Everything lighter and quieter when it's covered in snow.

"In two weeks," Hannah says softly, her voice barely above a whisper, "I'll be older than Julia ever was."

I swallow a lump in my throat. I look at the girl next to me and see tears shimmering in her eyes. I envy her parents. They get to see their daughter grow up. They get to have more days with their daughter than I ever got with mine. It's unfair. I reach out my hand and brush Hannah's red hair out of her face. "That must be strange."

Hannah nods. I feel Maura tensing next to me. She doesn't want to feel the pain. She keeps her tears at bay. I do the same as I gently take Hannah's cup from her before I take the girl in my arms where she cries softly.

"I just miss her," she whispers. "School's so boring without her. Everything's quiet and nobody makes jokes except for Seth and he just makes stupid jokes."

I don't reply. She's too young to feel this kind of loss.

"I want to bring her back," Hannah whispers weakly as she wipes her cheeks.

I nod and look at my wife next to me. Her expression is blank. "There's nothing I'd want more," I reply quietly.

We stay silent for a long time. Everything is quiet because of the snow. Hannah's sniffles slowly fade and the empty hole in my heart seems to widen. The sky is heavy and grey, weighing heavy on our moods.

When Hannah has to leave, she thanks us and I watch Maura cupping her cheek to kiss a forehead. She used to do the same with our daughter. It was her way of saying hello and goodbye, her way of saying 'I love you' and 'I care about you'. I'm happy to see her passing it on to Hannah. It shows met that she still has that love in her heart.

We watch Hannah leave and I feel my wife resting against my side. Again, we don't speak. We don't talk about Julia. We don't talk about our pain and our loss. We stay silent. Silence and emptiness goes well together. We are empty. We are silent. That's how it is.


	7. Chapter 7

I remember the last words she ever spoke.

 _I love you, Mommies._

I never allow myself to think about it, but for some reason I do tonight. Maura is still at work and I'm staring at Julia's picture.

 _I love you, Mommies._

Her weak voice is still ringing in my head. She rarely called us Mommy or Mama. She was too old and too cool for that. But in that moment, she was our little girl. She was our little girl and we had to let her go.

 _I love you, Mommies._

Her eyes were closed. Her skin was so pale it seemed see-through. She was quivering. Her body was worn-out. She was done. She couldn't fight any longer. Her body couldn't fight anymore. It was over.

I remember how the life flooded out of her. I can still hear the sound of Maura's whimpers and loud cries as she clutched to the lifeless body in our arms. But most of all, I still remember how Julia's face relaxed. I remember how her features weren't tensed anymore. I remember how her muscles relaxed, how her brow wasn't furrowed in pain any longer and how her lips turned from a sharp stripe in to their original, relaxed form. I remember how the pain faded away from her body, along with the life.

I remember the night that followed. I remember Maura's loud shrieks and heartbreaking cries when she refused to let Julia go. I remember how I couldn't speak or do anything but cry silently, there seemed to be no end to my tears. I remember the pain. And by remembering it, I start to feel it again. It's a kind of pain I know I'll never recover from. A kind I've never felt before.

I remember how she asked us if dying would hurt. I remember telling her she wouldn't feel a thing. I told her she would go to a beautiful place without pain and cancer. She told me she wished she could bring her favorite book. I told her there would be all the books in the world. I can only hope it's true. I can only hope she's reading all the books in the world right now.

I trace Julia's face with my fingers, imagining it's her skin instead of the cold glass of the photo frame. I remember how she used to fit in my arms. How she tucked her head under my chin when we hugged and how she could bury herself in my embrace whenever we watched TV. I can still feel her warm skin under my fingers, her small body in my arms, her messy curls tickling my chest.

I'm surprised to feel a tear trickling down my cheek. It's been weeks since I've cried. But I can't contain this kind of pain any longer. There's too much of it. It's pouring over, breaking my walls and flooding all over me. My knees buckle beneath me and I sink down to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest as I finally allow the pain to take over.

I'm no longer empty. I'm filled. Filled with pain. Filled with loss, hurt and awful, horrible, excruciating pain. The emptiness is gone. But I think I liked the emptiness better. Loud whimpers echo through the empty living room. I bury my head in my arms and feel hot tears streaming down my face, dripping onto my legs.

My little girl is gone.


	8. Chapter 8

I've been sitting here for hours. My back is stiff and my muscles hurt. But it's nothing compared to the pain in my heart. It's nothing compared to the loss I feel. It's nothing compared to the empty space my daughter left when she passed away.

The front door opens but I can't bring myself to look up. I hear the sound of keys clinging together and a coat being thrown onto the couch. I feel a warm body kneeling next to me and a strong hand on my upper back.

"S-She's g-gone, Maur," I whisper, my voice hoarse from screaming out in agony and pain.

"I know." Maura's voice is laced with tears and when I finally lift my head, I seem them silently falling down her cheeks. We're finally crying. We're finally feeling.

Our bodies tangle up in a tight embrace, our limbs linking together, my cheek resting against hers as our tears mingle in a mixture of pain and loss. We sit there for a long time. Simply crying. Simply feeling the loss, feeling the pain.

"Sometimes I still expect her to come home from school," Maura whispers as her hand tangles in my hair, gently massaging my scalp. "Every single day, I look at the clock when it's four PM and every single day it hurts when she doesn't come home."

I nod. Fresh tears start to stream down my face. Now that I've allowed them to fall, they won't stop. "I still see her sometimes," I whisper through the heavy lump in my throat. "On the street, in her bedroom, on the baseball field… But then I look again and I remember it can't be her."

We've never talked like this. Through the immense pain in my heart, a small ray of light peaks through. Maybe, just maybe… We'll make it through. "Remember how she turned the whole hospital floor upside down by organizing a wheelchair race?"

Maura chuckles through her tears and the sound startles us both. It's genuine and heartfelt. "Yes, I remember. I tried to be strict with her but you just kept laughing and undermining my authority."

I smile, a small smile that reaches my eyes and heart. "We were very good at that."

"Yes, you were. You just laughed when she ran into the house with muddy shoes, staining my freshly mopped-floor."

I smile again. Tears are still streaming down my face, but I can smile through them somehow. The memory of our little girl does that. "We cleaned it up, remember?"

"Because Ju-…." Maura stops. She can't say her name. "Because she felt guilty."

I nod. "She was like you in that."

The mood turns serious again. "I like to think she still is."

"You don't believe in life after death."

Maura sighs and moves her hand away from my head. "I have to." Her voice is strangled with tears. "I can't believe my little girl just… stopped living is just… gone for no reason. I have to believe she's in a good place."

She cries into the crook of my neck and I pull her close. "She's in an amazing place with lots of books and baseball games and muddy floors."

Maura chuckles again. It sounds almost strange. She turns her head and looks up at the table above us, staring at Julia's picture. "My sweet girl," she whispers barely audible.

We sit there for the rest of the night. We cry for hours. Hours of pain and tears, but afterwards the tears make room for relief. Relief that we finally cleared away the emptiness and filled it with pain. Pain is horrible. But emptiness is worse. Pain can be treated. Emptiness can never fade. Pain can. Pain can fade.


	9. Chapter 9

We are standing on the side of the baseball field and I can't take my eyes off Maura. She did her hair this morning. Her usual, perfectly styled curls are framing her beautiful face again. Her eyes are empty and filled with pain, but her lips are curled up into a slight smile. It's not a real smile, but it's more than I've seen in a long time. Maybe she's coming back. Maybe.

The snow is slowly melting as weak sunlight tries to make its way through the clouds. The game is about to start and I can feel Maura tensing next to me. There are too many people around us. I take her hand and lead her towards and empty space at the side of the field. You can't see the game very well from here, but it's perfect for us. After a while, we see Hannah running towards us.

"Hey!" She waves at us and stops in front of us. She looks healthier than she did a while ago. "Look." She turns around and shows us her shirt.

Maura gasps and I feel tears burning in my eyes. It's Julia's shirt. It has the number four on the back, Julia's lucky number. "For Julia."

Maura nods and she opens her arms to embrace Hannah. Hannah accepts it and smiles a sad smile. "Thank you," Maura whispers.

The game starts and Hannah has to go back. It's difficult to watch. I knew it was going to be. But I'm not leaving. I'm pushing through the pain I'm feeling.

I see Julia running across the field, her eyes focused on the game. I see her competitive shouts and directions towards the rest of her team. I see her pretty face lighting up with a smile when someone in her team runs a home-run and I see her strong legs carrying her as fast as she can when she runs one herself.

I close my eyes and breathe in the cold air. I see Julia sitting at the kitchen counter, reading a book while she eats her cereal. I hear Maura complaining about her unhealthy choice of cereal and I see Julia smirking and promising she'll take the healthy one next time. She won't.

I see her at our first oncology appointment. Julia was smart. She knew what oncology was. I see her at her first MRI scan, I see how scared she was and I can almost feel myself holding my breath as I watch our little girl in that big machine. I see her after her first chemo therapy. I remember how I held her hair and rubbed her back while she vomited again and again until her body was completely empty. I remember how her body fought and fought. I remember how she didn't give up. I remember her asking Maura to make her better because after all, she was the smartest doctor she'd ever known. But Maura couldn't. I remember Julia's face when Dr. Moustache walked in without a moustache. She knew. It was over.

Tears are burning in my eyes when I open them, watching the game while I think about that last night. She was in so much pain. I begged for it to stop. I would've taken it from her in a heartbeat. She asked us to make it stop. We couldn't. She got a fresh dose of morphine. It was the last dose she ever got. It made her sleepy. Right before she fell asleep, she said those last words. _I love you, Mommies._

We told her we loved her back. We kept telling her for hours and hours in those last moments of Julia's restless sleep. We told her how much we loved her, how much we would always continue to love her and how she brightened our lives. We told her we'd never, ever forget her and that she'd always be in our hearts. We told her the pain would over soon. We told her everything was going to be okay.

Those were the last words we ever spoke to her. She didn't even hear them. She died in that restless sleep. Her muscles relaxed, her hand that was clamped around my wrist let go. She was gone. Free from pain.


	10. Chapter 10

Standing there at the side of the baseball field, I feel my cheeks getting cold from the wind that blow on my tears. Maura looks up at me and cups my cheek with her right hand. "Jane," she whispers.

I shake my head and manage a small smile. "She's not in pain anymore."

Tears well up in Maura's eyes. She shakes her head. "She's not."

"I miss her."

Maura bites her lips and nods. She turns and wraps her arms around my waist as she hides her face into the crook of my neck. "So do I."

"Maur?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

It's been weeks since we've said it out loud. I know she knows I love her, but we haven't said it. We didn't talk about our feelings. Love is a feeling, so we didn't talk about it. But something changed on that night we spent on the floor. We're in pain now. We're not empty anymore.

"I love you too, Jane."

"We'll get through this."

Maura nods.

"I have no idea how, because the pain is just excruciating. But we'll get through it."

Maura nods again and pulls away to look at me. "Excruciating."

"She's not in pain anymore," I repeat softly. "She's better now."

Maura cries softly and hides her face from the people a few yards away. She nods. "No more cancer."

Tears spill onto my cheeks. I remember when Julia said those words. When the moustache was gone, along with all hope, she asked us where she would go if she died. We told her she would go to a beautiful place.

 _No more cancer?_

No more cancer.

She asked us if we would go with her. We told her no. She said that was for the best, 'cause the world needed us here. Bad guys needed to be caught and dead people needed to be cut-up. It was the last time we shared a laugh with her.

I turn my attention back to the game and smile when I see Hannah hitting second base. She wears Julia's shirt with pride and even though she's not very fast, she's doing it in memory of her best friend. Her best friend who is now just a memory.

No. Not _just_ a memory. A memory. The most amazing, beautiful, most valuable memory in the world. I will treasure the memory of my little girl for the rest of my life. Julia is not just a memory. She's our daughter. She's our child and she always will be. Not just a memory.  
We will never see Julia again. But she'll always be a part of our lives. She's a piece or our hearts. A part of us.

We didn't get to see her grow up. But we got eleven years with her. Eleven amazing, beautiful years. It's too short and we wanted many, many more years. But this was all we got. We got eleven years with her. And now Julia is gone. To a better place. No more pain. No more tears. No more cancer. All that is just a memory.


End file.
